The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1 Read online

  “But Mama,” I’d plead. “I just want to go out and play.”

  My, the brutishness with which she raked a comb through my hair! Never would my sheer locks hold the girlish ringlets into which she ironed them. It was a source of perpetual guilt.

  “The proper term is Mother,” said she. “Not Mama.”

  “But can’t you hear the other boys? It’s so nice and sunny out.”

  “And dirty. The city is filthy. Do you want to soil your clothing?”

  Debate never moved me an inch.

  “No, Mama,” said I.

  “Mother, Zebulon. We are a proper family.”

  We were anything but! Our Sunday walks to and from church offered my best gulps of fresh air, and when possible I wiggled from my leash and rushed up to other boys with far dirtier knees than I, only to be too shy to ask to be taught their games of cards or jacks. The Chicago streets might as well have been the Galápagos Islands; I was a stranger there, but smuggled home rare specimens, from rust-burred bottle caps and teeth-scored horse bits to sticks.

  Yes, sticks! How I adored a good, sturdy stick! So gnarled, even vulgar they looked inside our scrubbed and laundered confines, so black were the shavings of bark they left upon white lace doilies. My favorite stick of all time boasted a ninety-degree bend and, having spied lads on Sundays doing their best cowboy or Indian impersonations, I recognized it as a prize. During bathroom breaks from my tutors, I rollicked about the house with the stick in hand, dueling famous outlaws and taking down creeping henchmen with impossible hip shots.

  Confiscation was inevitable; I was a careless child. Abigail made me set the stick upon the floor before she pinched it through a handkerchief and flung it out back as you might a dead mouse. She then led me to the bathroom, filled the sink with scalding water, and waited for me to to lower my hands. Tears welled from dual pains—the burn of the water and the loss of my stick—but I did not let myself cry. I swore to my bright pink hands that one day I would find myself a better gun, even a real one, and oh! How I would use it.

  Lend me your fingers, Reader, and your toes as well, so that together we might tally the times I weathered such sanctions. I so wished to please Mama—sorry, Mother; let us agree upon Abigail—but came to accept myself as a grave disappointment. Why else wouldn’t this woman traffic in hugs or kisses, those currencies of affection so prevalent in my storybooks?

  No cruelty leveled by Abigail Finch oppressed me more than French. It got so that I could manage but a few hours per night of sleep. My first duty each morn, after dressing, was to enter Abigail’s room, stand rigid before her bed, and recite five minutes of memorized French narrative while she scrutinized every lilt of lip or curl of tongue. She frowned at each stuttered flub and snapped her fingers to make me start over. On bad days, I was there for an hour. But what glorious serenity felt I when I got it right! My mother appeared to float above the sheets, taken away by my expert telling.

  For five years I believed that hogwash. At age thirteen, I misspoke an obscenity and my sonhood was forever altered. What I meant to recite was Le garçon a regardé le soleil se coucher sur la butte (The boy watched the sun set over the butte.). But B and P sounds are slippery, and the last word came out pute—a vulgar word for “whore.” I nattered past it, perceiving my blunder only after beginning the next paragraph. At first, I thanked my luck that Abigail hadn’t noticed. A mere minute later, I became irked. My sterile life frustrated me, and the idea of getting into real trouble was strangely enticing.

  Again I smuggled the word into a sentence. Again she evinced no ill reaction. I used it twice in repetition: pute, pute. She nodded along. With an icy thrill, I began to insert into my monologue supplementary smut: chatte, merde, connard. She remained satisfied so long as I pronounced my profanities with pluck. When at last I was excused, I had to hide my trembling hands.

  Abigail Finch did not speak French.

  The language, as best as I could guess, had been chosen not for the practical purpose of a future business trip I might take abroad, but rather for the fantasies that French allowed her, of Parisian balls she’d never attend, of twinkling boardwalks along which she’d never stroll, of mystery, of romance, of love. My hundreds of hours of slavish study had nothing to do with me. I was just a knife in Abigail’s silent fight against the deficiencies of Bartholomew.

  So I was a knife, was I? Well, then, I would cut.

  I started to fry my French in spite. Vous êtes bête. (You are stupid.) Vous ne savez rien. (You know nothing.) Vous êtes méchante. (You are mean to me.) Je ne vous aime pas. (I don’t like you.) Abigail smiled gently and I felt rotten; she nodded wisely and I felt rottener. Loathing oozed from every pore, and rather than soak myself in its hot viscosity, I slopped it back upon her. Je vous déteste, Maman, je vous déteste: I hate you, Mother, I hate you.

  From there the oaths only compounded.

  Forgive me if I do not repeat them here.

  These were the most hurtful things imaginable to say to a person, and I do not believe one can say such things day after day, and month after month, and continue to look into the eyes of the blasphemed. Nor could I look into my own—the reflection I saw inside every pewter teapot and glass clock face repelled me.

  By the day I turned fourteen, I wanted nothing more than to escape the shame and guilt. Youth had served me only anguish; I was eager to leapfrog the teenage years, jump into the big, ugly boots of an adult, and do whatever it took to be, at long last, noticed. If I was fortunate, thought I, I’d become the antithesis of what Abigail wanted. I’d burp in public, guffaw rudely at burlesque, wear the same suit for days on end so that words (embarrassing to me for how stuffily I spoke them) became unnecessary to convey my surly nature.

  That night, before I left, I tiptoed the path I’d taken to deliver hundreds of insulting French soliloquies and stood one last time at my mother’s side. Even in sleep she was disgruntled. She clawed her pillow and gnawed her bottom lip. Curiosity got the best of me and I leaned over the bed, as careful as a lad of that age can be, and placed a kiss upon her troubled forehead. It was as nice as the books said, though a bit salty. I licked my lips clean and moved with some reluctance toward the door. I was sorry I could not be the boy that Abigail Finch had wanted, but glad that she might finally rest easy in my wake.

  Au revoir, Maman.

  III.

  AND THAT, DEAREST READER, IS how I ducked the drab future aimed squarely between my eyes and began to ramble exciting ethnic neighborhoods, stealing every strange, spicy morsel I could, much of which fell out of a mouth agog in constant wonder. This boisterous, cantankerous, pugilistic city had hidden from me for too long.

  Chicago of 1893 was a sensory carnival. The striped cloth awnings of taverns, druggists, and shoemakers snapped in lakefront wind; meat markets stank of hot blood; the glass bottles of milkmen made music as they were lifted from dairy wagons; locomotives coughed up oily clouds that settled as soot upon your skin; and horse-drawn undertakers’ carriages clacked and clacked and clacked—the only sound that did not change in a town that was always changing.

  Those first weeks were quite a challenge for the baby-fleshed Zebulon Finch! I slept in barns, on sidewalks, inside of factories that had left windows open. I became acquainted with creatures I’d never before met: lice, mice, roaches, and rats. Many a night I held back sobs while dreaming of my clean and comfortable bed, and yet I refused to go home. My sense of self-respect was a foundling, but born with a pair of strong knees.

  Hunger gave me the boldness required to seek employment. I placed brick, scraped a hog-house floor, and scrubbed smelly horses. My tender palms grew callouses of which I became obsessed. At night I’d stroke these rough patches in wonder. Look at me now, Mother! A proper hooligan at last! A lonely one, though, until a stint operating a paintbrush brought me into federation with a young Italian by the name of Giuseppe Fratelli.

  F
ratelli was my opposite. He spoke enthusiastic but patchy English and had no formal education at all, but possessed a rat’s instinct for survival. After a long weekend spent painting a firehouse, he invited me to his uncle’s tavern for a carafe of red wine, a drink with which I was unfamiliar. I found it sour, but Fratelli guzzled it like water, and soon enough we were arm in arm singing songs from the old country. It was my first bender, and despite the morning-after head-pounding, I enjoyed the hell out of it. My future, as I saw it, was filled with drunken binges and the resultant blotting away of unwelcome memories of my mother and father. I could not wait.

  Never before had I a companion, and for a goodly while I behaved as Fratelli’s shadow. He was but a handful of years older than I, but I idolized his fearless swagger, disrespect of elders, and forceful animalism, whether it be in pursuit of violence or amore. I endeavored to improve his English and in exchange he taught me where to find the nearest hostels, the cheapest markets, the warmest baths, and the least revolting outhouses.

  Little Italy was a hazardous place for a boy of my refinement. Try as I did to ply the slang of the street, the truth was that I sounded like a blue blood looking to get mugged. Thus I took Fratelli’s lead and focused upon the physical. I engaged in my first fist fight; the pummel upon my flesh was frightening, but when it was through each bruise panged in the most invigorating way. The desperado fantasies I’d spun while shooting my stick-gun in Abigail’s house had prepared me quite well for these rowdy new habits.

  The painting work eventually dried up (so to speak) and I did not see Fratelli for many weeks. When next I did, he was looking fine in a Prince Albert frock and wide-brimmed fedora, and I asked him what business had so quickened his income. He looked about furtively before beckoning me into the shady sort of establishment within which two enterprising young men could have a confidential consultation.

  There he told me of the dire lack of employment that had led him to risk the unthinkable. It was not difficult to find reports of the violent La Mano Nero gang in newspapers, but Fratelli revealed to me that the title of “the Black Hand” could be borrowed by anyone possessed of pen, paper, and desperation. He described the note he had written to a grocer demanding one hundred and fifty dollars or else the Black Hand would cut off the noses of his children. “A veil will not hide the wound,” was the line of which Fratelli was proudest. I was in shock. Had he actually received the money?

  “Every and each penny,” replied he, flashing me a winning grin.

  I was jealous, all right. By then, ambition to improve my social position burned so fiercely that I’d made it my purpose to understand the Italians among whom I spent my time. Largely, I found, they hailed from hamlets in southern Italy, and many wished only to generate enough wealth to return to Sicily or Campania and purchase land for their waiting families. Practical men, and yet La Mano Nero was on their lips, each utterance followed by a kiss to their crucifixes.

  In other words, they were ripe for the picking.

  Was I ever the nervous one! I had chosen as my first target a tailor and written my extortion letter a dozen times over. Finally I stamped it with the famous trademark—a fist rendered in black ink—and delivered it beneath the tailor’s door with specific instructions regarding payment.

  On the appointed day, the tailor indeed arrived, looking green. Taking a great breath, I walked past the tailor and paused to ask him the time of day—that was our signal. He mashed his lips as if dying to spit invectives. Instead he stuffed an envelope into my hand and charged away, eyes watering. My heart was an eager little woodpecker as I dove into the nearest alley and counted my winnings. The two hundred dollars was all there. I whooped. I couldn’t wait to find Fratelli and flaunt it.

  Instead what I found were a dozen new targets for extortion. The first purchase I made with my profit was a ream of paper and a flamboyant set of pens. My fantasies were a-flutter with the kinds of depraved acts I could describe, the astounding sums I could command. My second payment was for a room of my own, and nestled within, I sat at the furnished desk, cracked my knuckles, and set to writing.

  What I had overlooked was that the Black Hand’s clout came from a willingness to make good on threats. Few American thugs I had heard of would slash a man’s face in broad daylight just to make off with his wallet. But these immigrants and their mafiosi were a different breed. Merchants began to neglect my limp ultimatums. My money dwindled. I became anxious. Still, I would not be forced to return to Abigail Finch. As tough as I’d become so far, I needed to become tougher, and be quick about it.

  I set my sights upon Mr. Perfetta, a reputed saddlemaker and bridlemaker possessed of a comely wife and gurgling baby. I sent a letter, a strong one, full of phrases like “you have been adjudged to hand over money or life” and “woe to you if you do not resolve to comply.” I demanded payment of five hundred dollars and specified a due date; Mr. Perfetta, however, ignored it. I sent a follow-up letter stating how I was “sick and tired of your dally” and that inattention to this second chance would “bring down your ruination” and in the margin rendered my finest black hand emblem yet. The new due date came and passed.

  So it was that I girded myself for violence. Not wishing to prolong the wait, I journeyed to his shop. I was early and found this note upon the door:

  Dear Mr. Hand—

  Thank you for your notice of payment due. I regret to say that I am already obligated to another Mr. Hand, who has demanded from me the even more impressive sum of $1,000 and who has insisted I produce “every and each penny.” I do wish that the various Mr. Hands would call a meeting to agree upon their figures. In the meantime I will resume the production of saddles and bridles, both of which I can offer at a fair price should you be in need.

  With respect—

  Louis Perfetta

  Even before I gathered my dropped jaw I recognized the phrasing of “every and each penny” and identified my competitor as none other than Fratelli. The unfairness of it was too much to stomach. Fratelli possessed every advantage over me—he was, after all, Italian!—while I had been reduced of late to stealing windowsill baked goods. Fueled by a childish frenzy, I accosted every sleepy-eyed palooka on the block with the only word that mattered—“Fratelli!”—until rewarded by a pointed finger. By nightfall I had closed in on a café outside of which stood Fratelli smoking a cigarette with wine-stained fingers.

  Humiliated, hungry, and tired, I challenged him. He responded with familiar oaths. Ciuccio! Finocchio! Stronzo! In retaliation I unleashed my full vocabulary. He could not keep up and that shamed him. He slapped my face; I slugged his head. There was a scuffle, the sort to which I’d become accustomed, and then, somehow, he got his hands on an empty wine bottle. This he used as a club, a capital idea had not a lucky snatch of my hand robbed him of it upon first strike.

  Reader, I know not how to plead. Fratelli was bedecked in rings, fobs, and a pelisse, while I, Zebulon Finch, son of Bartholomew, could feel the crusted filth of my undergarments. How woefully easy was the act of lowering a blunt weapon! The bottle crashed upon Fratelli’s forehead, driving him to a seated position. There was blood. His fingers clawed at my throat. To ward them off, I lowered the bottle again. More blood, this time arterial.

  Bestial now, I hurried back toward Mr. Perfetta. I would show him exactly which Mr. Hand he was dealing with. Within minutes, though, I was intercepted by a hulking trio, two of whom gripped me by the arms, while the third relieved me of my weapon, removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and made a fastidious display of wiping clean his fingers.

  Said he, “My name is Luca Testa.”

  His accent glided like lotion, quite at odds with a posture that made it look as if he hung from a coat rack. He folded the handkerchief, smoothed the center part of his otter-sleek hair, and offered a grin made up of identical round teeth.

  “And I am the Black Hand.”

  Such rodomontad
e deserved the scornful laughter I gave it. Testa muttered “andiamo” and his men-at-arms ushered me several blocks south, down unlit stone steps, and into an underground trattoria populated by whispering men with gleaming pinkie rings. I was terrified, yes, but also thrilled. Even were my throat about to be slit, I was more alive than I’d ever felt inside Abigail Finch’s prison.

  We took seats at a corner table. Testa sat on one side with legs crossed and fingers laced upon a knee. I squeezed between the two heavies. Testa clapped his hands and a man brought over a bottle of wine and poured glasses, one for Testa, one for me. I bolted most of it in a single go and saw Testa’s amused smirk. I was fourteen but felt half that; I urged myself to slow down, calm down, listen, and think.

  Testa had a vision and with a liquescent lilt described it. The American offspring of La Mano Nero, said he, had carved itself a reputation, but how far could it go with sloppy firebombings, stabbings, and kidnappings? Centralization of power was the key to upward mobility, and it was he, Luca Testa, who would midwife this phase. Finding candidates for soldiers was easy, laughed he, for nothing was more difficult for a criminal to hide than success. Fratelli’s gaudy costuming had recommended him highly, but his meeting with Testa had been canceled due to a random attack by a psychopath named Zebulon Finch.

  Fortunately for me, my rash behavior warmed the cockles of Testa’s heart. True, I wasn’t Italian, but a young animale like myself was just what the man needed. I’d be supplied with several sets of smart clothing, the newest model of derringer, and money enough to throw at drink or women—provided neither got in the way of business. All I had to do was fire the occasional bullet, break the occasional nose or finger or arm or leg. Could I do that?

  Yes, thought I with some surprise. I think that I can.

  Testa added that I’d also have to start the occasional fire. He asked if I knew anything about dynamite and I wondered if my old pop, wherever he was, could feel his ears burning.